Dean places his hand against the swell of my breast encased in a hospital gown, closing his eyes as he revels in the feel of my heartbeat against his palm. I touch my hand to his, tears welling in my eyes. So many tears. I roll onto my side, trying not to tangle myself in cords, and press our foreheads together. “Mandy found out about us. She saw your text. She… she was so mad, so furious, and I flipped out, Dean. I was out of my head.” I inhale a rickety breath. “It was the lowest moment of my life. I thought I’d lost everything.”

He exhales slow and deliberate, pressing his hand further into my chest. “You only lose everything when you lose this, Corabelle.”

I nod, and it takes all of my willpower not to lean up and capture a kiss.

We lie like that for a while, pressed together, face to face, his lips trailing tiny kisses along my hairline, my eyes, my nose, my chin. He avoids my mouth, and eventually we hold each other in silence, just staring and thinking. I ask him at one point, “How did you get in here?”

Dean smiles softly. “Your mom texted me. She said you were awake.”

“My mom was okay with you seeing me?” I wonder through a frown.

“She saw what a wreck I was. I was losing my damn mind the night they brought you in. I thought you were gone.” He shifts on the bed, pulling me closer. “Your mom took me aside and said it would be better if I stayed away for Mandy’s sake, but she’d keep me updated on your condition. Trust me, Cora, if it were up to me I wouldn’t have left your side.”

I raise my hand and press the pads of my fingers to his cheek, grazing them down his jawline. I watch his eyes flutter in contentment. I’m overcome by the feelings sweeping through me, wondering how something so beautiful, so powerful, so right, could be so very wrong.

But right or wrong, I know one thing is for certain. “This is real, isn’t it?”

I’ve been trying to deny it. I’ve been pushing away the blinding truths, telling myself we’re still trapped in that emotional prison of Earl’s basement. These feelings aren’t genuine, they aren’t real—they were manufactured by trauma and isolation. This was all a part of Earl’s twisted plan, and he succeeded tenfold.

Only… it’s getting harder and harder to believe that. The truth is in the way Dean holds me, the way he sings me to sleep and silences my demons with a gentle stroke of his hand. It’s in the way my heart beats differently when he’s near. It’s in the way I envision a future, a future I can never have, and he’s there. He’s always there.

It’s in the way he’s looking at me right now.

Dean studies me, his eyes darting over my face, memorizing every fine line, every crack and crease. A smile touches his lips, as if we’re finally coming to terms with what we both already knew. “Yeah, Corabelle. It’s real.”